


Tony's Choice

by TellMeNoAgain



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anger is a Stage of Grief, Clint's Struggling, Gen, Not Beta Read, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22407976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TellMeNoAgain/pseuds/TellMeNoAgain
Summary: USUALLY I AM MUCH NICER TO TONY, but in my defense, usually in my stories I don't let him be dead, either.There is *gasp* no sex in this, at all, even if you squint.~~~Clint wrestles with the worst of the stages of grief.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Tony's Choice

**Author's Note:**

> This has not been beta read because I wouldn't do that to a beta reader. First off, it's a drabble. Secondly, there's no sex. Thirdly, I'm being mean to a character we all love. Fourthly, there's no sex. And fifthly, this is nothing but unrelieved angst.

The suit is itchy. Clint hates suits. He hates wearing black suits, hates that Tony isn’t here to bitch to about wearing a black suit, hates that he’s kinda relieved Tony isn’t here, too. He’s never been _uncomplicated_ but he hates that right now, he’s a goddamn mess of need and love and gratitude and hatred. He’s grateful that his family is back and he hates that it isn’t enough. He hates that Tony is dead, and he’s so grateful he doesn’t have to try to make peace with the man right now, too.

Because this isn’t _right_. This isn’t a _fix_. Clint’s not all better because he has his family back, five years too late. And he’s not the only one. Post-Snap, the world did a lot of crazy, nasty, evil, _bad_ _shit_ , and Tony had a chance to fix it, to erase the lives lost to the riots, the famine, the disease, and he didn’t take it.

He didn’t take it because he’s a selfish fuck, a selfish little bitch. Clint hates that, too.

Clint corrects himself almost automatically, now, because Tony _was_ a selfish fuck. He stares out the window at the calm water. _Was._

Clint’s a dad. He wouldn’t trade one kid for the other, he would save one kid and die saving the next, so he gets that, he understands how one kid can be your irrational hope, your reason for a bunch of crazy bullshit. But people died in riots that didn’t have to happen. Little girls just Morgan’s same age died when their parents dusted, all around the world, thousands of them, faces Tony never loved but _someone_ loved them. 

And now, five years later, those someones are _back_ , and sometimes no one even knows where the missing little faces went. If they were dusted, they’d be back. So they weren’t dusted. But five years, so much bad can happen in five years, to a little girl, a little boy, a _baby_ , and Clint couldn’t save them all. He tried, Nat tried, the good guys _tried_ , but they didn’t save enough, didn’t really save all that many. So many missing little faces.

So fuck Tony. Fuck that asshole, who thought his one sweet babyfaced kid was worth more than the thousands, the hundreds of thousands, who have disappeared in five years, who won’t be resurrected to hug their gone-and-back-again loved ones. Fuck any of his other reasons- and Clint knows there are other ones, Tony does nothing without his twisty mind considering other angles. But fuck every angle that leaves Clint here, five years later in a black suit, staring out at calm cool water, watching a little girl walk with her mom along the shore.

Laura is shouting at the kids next door, her voice tinged with her normal humor and frustration, something about shoelaces, and it still chokes him up to hear it. He played the damn voicemail about stopping for milk until he knew how many breaths she had taken, exactly when his babygirl would shout in the background that her brother was _such a jerk, God_. Until it feels weird to hear her voice saying other things, now. Feels wrong, false, makes him twitch. 

_They Came Back Wrong_ is an ad campaign, it’s everywhere, talking about the trauma of people returned to the broken people who have lived five years, the ones who are left, the ones who aren’t missing. But it’s not the ones who came back who are wrong, that’s the whole point of the campaign. It’s the ones who lived five years, on a busted planet, post-apocalypse. There were alleys at first, and then cemeteries, as society caught back up to speed, full of suicides who would still be breathing if Tony wasn’t such a selfish _fuck_ of a human being.

If he’d just _undone_ Morgan, and made it right for the millions of people, secondary wave, who’d been turned to clay instead of dust. If he’d just, if he’d just-

Clint takes a breath and realizes he’s glaring at a five year old, his hands tight fisted. He didn’t used to be this monster, this monster who can’t look at a five year old little babygirl without feeling so angry his stomach turns. He knows she doesn’t deserve that, so he looks away, out over the water.

Nat would understand. Nat would have smiled and promised Tony anything to get him to agree to help and she would have erased those deaths, all the deaths, with her own snap. But Nat never got the chance. Nat’s not here to stand in a black dress and go honor the man who gave him back _everything_ , _everything._ A man who died to do it, died to bring back Clint’s whole world, and who somehow still isn’t a hero to Clint.

Clint’s not watching the media debate it, if they even are, if they even realize Tony could have snapped it all away. And he’s not, he’s not going to let himself ruin Pepper’s last day focused on Tony’s wishes and needs. He’s not going to tell a five year old kid that her dad is a fucking monster. He’s going to be grateful, he decides. He’s going to pretend to be Natasha, pretend he doesn’t have emotions, just tools he uses to get what he needs. He needs to be calm, and sad, and grateful, today. He needs to look down at a five year old and tell her she should be so proud of her smart daddy. He needs to look Pepper in the eye and say _I’m so sorry- if you need anything._

Laura calls his name and he flinches, because it’s not the _Hey, Clint, babe_ from the voicemail. He’s not ready, just yet, so he calls back, “Coming!” as his eyes drop to the five year old girl in her black dress holding Pepper’s hand as they walk along the shore. He deliberately unclenches his jaw, his fists, wipes his face clear, and practices how he’ll breathe out there, beside them, mourning their hero.

Nat would understand. But Nat’s not here. 

Fuck Tony Stark, anyway. The guy always was a selfish douche.

He watches Morgan Stark bend down and pick something up off the ground to show Pepper, some small treasure the world has offered her. The girl worth a million clayed lives, marveling at a rock or a leaf, Clint can’t tell.

He sighs, stepping back. Because Clint would save one of his kids, and then the other, and then the next, or die trying. 

He didn’t get a shot at the choice Tony made, to find out if he could have done differently. All of his loved ones are returned to his arms, to stand beside him, to grow and love and heal together, all of his loved ones except Nat, and she saved the universe with her choice, so he can’t blame her for not being here.

He’ll never have to make that choice. He’ll never know. So maybe that’s the thing he can hold tight today.

Tony made the choice, so no one else had to. He made the wrong one, Clint’s pretty sure, but no one else had to make it, no one else had to carry the weight of what-to-do, what-was-done, who-to-wish-dead. Tony made that call. He chose all the babies born in the last five years over all the people lost, second wave, to the Snap.

Clint has no idea what he would have done, because his babies are all next door, getting yelled at by his wife. He likes to think he would have made a different decision, that he would have picked the massive numbers, picked the fix that erased five years of pain. But just when he’s sure, he thinks, _what if it was Lila,_ and then he doesn’t know, because he’d save her, or Cooper, or Nathaniel, first, and then the next one, and then the next one. So maybe he’s a selfish bastard, too, after all, and a hypocrite for thinking he could ever be better than the man who gave his life to undo the Snap for half of the universe and only asked for one thing in return, one thing that wasn't even for him, he won't ever even get to enjoy it.

Clint wipes his face again and decides it’s time. He’s ready enough. He can go downstairs and be grateful to Tony Stark, because now Clint will never have to know. 

“Dad!” shouts Lila.

“Yeah, be right there,” he tells her, turning from the window. _Be right there, babygirl._

**Author's Note:**

> Oh God. Well, go ahead. Get in the comment section. I'm fine. I won't even defend it.


End file.
